We recently talked about how your car is listening to you, but it is not the only thing. You phone is too. (It’s creepy, right?) If you would like to put “earmuffs” on your phone so it stops listening to all your conversations, here’s how:
Go to Settings > Privacy & Settings > Tracking. Once here, you can individually stop apps from tracking you or turn them all off at once.
Next, go back to Settings > Microphone. This will show you all the apps that are listening to you while you are on the phone. You can individually turn off apps – or remove all of them – from here.
Finally, go back to Settings > Privacy & Settings > Apple Advertisements (way down at the bottom of the page). Here you can turn off personal ads, which are created based on your phone’s activity and what it hears you saying. It won’t stop the ads entirely, but at least you won’t feel like Apple is constantly eavesdropping on you.
And if you’ve ever wondered why others in your home start seeing ads for things that you have searched for, it is likely because you are all using the same external IP address. These eavesdropping applications often can’t tell the difference between one person using a lot of different devices from multiple people using a variety of devices. Therefore, when one of you start researching a new roof, Taylor Swift tickets or pet toys, you may all see an uptick in ads for these products and services.
